Chasing Illusions: A Personal Journey

A Week Alone with Me

Day One: In Oakland

“My mother has good taste in men,” you said. I noticed the Freudian slit in your dress that hiked up your leg, just beyond the fatty muscles of your inner thigh. You were wearing a red dress that left the townspeople covered in blood; it was almost more painful for us to watch you wear it out than it was for you to put on. “Let’s run away, dish,” you said. “Sure thing, spoon,” I said. I put my arms around your body and lifted you while spinning. We both got too dizzy and too drunk from all the spinning and didn’t know which way was up. “I’m sorry I couldn’t throw you to the moon,” I said. “You can try again tomorrow,” you assured me before throwing up on my shoes.

Day Two: Last Rites

You sparked up the car and I

I was never very good at keeping them to myself. “I fell for you,” I said, “on deaf ears.” “I don’t have time for this right now,” you said. “When will you?” I asked. “Meet up with me later,” you said, “in one of those glasses of whiskey.”

I danced around the rim of the whiskey bottle as I dry-heaved from intoxication and dehydration. “We should leave. I think one of the bartenders is falling in love with you,” I said. “Would that be such a bad thing?” You asked. “For me it would,” I said. “Why is that?” You asked. You kissed a napkin, leaving every part of your mouth on the paper, and handed it to the bartender with the pixie cut. “I never told you about the last time I had sex with someone who wasn’t you,” I said, “I felt the shallow pools of my mother’s shame as I laid there naked next to them sucking their musk into my lungs. I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

Day 6: The Lady Killer

“These fingers don’t work like they used too. This phone has a mind of its own. I have a real problem with impulse control; that’s why my fingers keep fidgeting with the buttons on your blouse or the buttons that control the lights in this